OUTDOORS: Two fathers take their sons out on their first elk hunts in the Rockies

Contributed photo
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Jason Huebner (right) and his son Wyatt wait out a Colorado snowstorm.

Jason Huebner found his son Jason’s elk on a steep, brushy mountainside.

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Ethan Grant and his dad, Neil, show off Ethan’s first elk.

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Jason Huebner (pointing) explains that he thought the elk would be bedded down in the dark timber down below and would come up to feed in the higher parks late in the day. His son Wyatt (left) would take his first elk ever from the ridge to their left.

CONTRIBUTED PHOTO

The Rocky Mountains are vast, beautiful and majestic. They are where Jason Huebner’s dad promised to take him. Unfortunately, his dad died before he could do so.

Jason made the same promise to his sons and took the oldest, Austin, when he was 12. This year it was Wyatt’s turn. Neil Grant and his son Ethan went along with them. Each young hunter had Colorado cow elk tags.

Huebner, a Texas game warden, had been in Colorado’s Grand Mesa before and knew where he wanted to go. The fathers and sons stayed the first night in Durango. The next morning, after driving not too far beyond Montrose, they drove 20 miles into the forest down a bumpy road. They had gone from 1,848 feet above sea level at San Angelo and risen to more than 8,500 feet where they stopped.

“It was a little harder to breathe the first day we got there, but otherwise I didn’t have a problem with the altitude,” Ethan Grant said.

Clear skies had turned to overcast before they left the highway. The wind started to blow as they set up camp about 5 that Sunday afternoon. “The winds blew 40 to 50 mph during the night; sleet and then snow started falling early the next morning,” Jason Huebner said.

The group spent the morning getting all their gear situated. After lunch, they took a drive to the area Huebner thought would hold elk.

At some point, after they walked out onto a brush covered point, Jason explained that he thought the elk would be bedded down in the dark timber down below and would come up to feed in the higher parks (meadows) late in the day. The father and son teams sat facing different directions so they could see each side.

“But when we got there, it started snowing so hard you could not see. It was like a rain shower that you could see coming and then going, but it was snow,” Neil Grant said.

After the snow had moved on, about 4 p.m., Neil noticed elk moving about two-thirds of the way up a ridge across the way to their left. He ranged the animals at 460 yards and moved to tell the Huebners. (They had already decided 12-year-old Wyatt would get the first shot.)

The seven cow elk were moving somewhat parallel to them but getting closer as they moved up the trail. “We were hurrying through the brush, trying to get in front of them,” said 16-year-old Ethan.

The amount of brush and timber increased as the hunters moved to close the distance on their quarry. When the elk were finally in the 250 to 300-yard range, and with brush still all around, Jason thought, “We’re this close and we can’t get a shot.”

Then he finally found a small opening so he could place the shooting sticks in front of his son.

“Dad, I don’t think I can shoot,” said Wyatt with shaking hands. The youngster, who had been hunting with his dad for years, finally settled down, steadied the 7 mm-08 Remington bolt-action rifle, sighted through the Zeiss scope and squeezed the trigger. Four times.

The 400-plus-pound cow fell on the last shot and then slid about 75 yards down the snow-covered mountainside.

(There was a moment afterward when Ethan might have gotten a shot, but his dad had already put a shell in the chamber. Ethan tried to do the same thing, causing a slight jam that gave the elk enough time to disappear.)

Now they had a real dilemma. They were nearly a mile from the pickup, it was getting late and they had an elk down, across a big ravine, more than a football field away.

Should they go around and back to get to the animal? Would they have time before dark? Or should they go down and up?

Jason took a picture of the location where the animal was, a rock and a tree visible as markers. “I was pretty excited that Wyatt had taken his first elk and decided to go down,” Jason said.

Though the elk had appeared to be in the open, the hunting party found steep and brush-laden terrain on the other side. Luckily, they located Wyatt’s prize in time to take pictures before dark.

Afterward, they quartered the animal and took out half, boned out, in their backpacks. It was after 10 when they finally got back to camp. They were plenty tired to say the least.

The rest of the venison was retrieved the next morning. After a good lunch, the four took back to the mountains in search of an elk for Ethan. Just before dark, without enough time to close the distance, they spotted elk feeding in a high mountain park more than 1,000 yards away.

On Wednesday, they left early, drove 40 minutes and got out of the truck at dawn. They made their way to the park, and others, but did not find any elk. Finally, they ate lunch and took a nap before starting back toward the vehicle.

At some point they spotted elk about 600 yards from them. “But I made a beginner’s mistake and started down where they could see us,” Neil Grant said. The elk started moving away but, Ethan said, “They weren’t high-tailing it.”

The hunters devised a plan to take the truck and drive around to get closer. But the previously frozen ground had turned to mush and Neil learned what it was like to spin the tires. “It wasn’t super steep, but was muddy and slick.”

Then the pickup high-centered with the right rear and left front tires off the ground. “I was kicking myself, mad at myself (because we were stuck), Neil said, “But Jason was cool and said, “Let’s see if we can’t get out of this.’”

Jason got behind the steering wheel and the other three pushed. With about an hour and a half of daylight left, they rocked the vehicle back and forth and it finally came free.

“Fifteen minutes later, we were walking toward where we thought the elk might be,” Jason said.

“Elk,” said Wyatt, who saw elk after they had only gone a quarter of a mile. “The elk were jogging and I thought they were going to run,” said the youngest hunter. So he yelled, “Elk!” and his dad said, “Where?”

The cows were only 200 yards away. Ethan put a shell in the chamber of the 7 mm-08 Model 7 Remington rifle and laid it across a tripod his dad had set in place. He could see through his Leopold scope that the elk still were moving, at least until his dad made what was described as, “a sick cow call.”

The elk stopped. Ethan’s shot was almost immediate and his quarry dropped. After a few photos, they quartered the elk and took it out that night.

On Thursday, Wyatt and Ethan built a snowman and explored the mountains on an ATV with their fathers. It was a laid-back day in a week that taught them about camping and hunting in the big mountains, about elk and survival in a land that can be as dangerous as it is beautiful.

It was quality time spent outdoors with their dads. Providing venison for the table was just icing on the cake.

“The mountains were beautiful,” said the young hunters, but there was some discussion about wondering whether they would ever get there. “Every five minutes they (the dads) wanted to stop and take a picture,” Wyatt said.

His comment reminds me of that saying, “When you are young, you just want to get to your destination; when you get older, it is more about the journey ”

(Jason Huebner has another son, Zane, who is 10. He plans to share this experience with his youngest when he turns 12.)

CORRECTION: The Operation Orphans website is www.operationsorphans.org. The site was incorrect in a story in the Dec. 5 Standard-Times.